Arena (1953) User Reviews

A Soap opera with spurs

[lorenellroy · 6/10 · 23 April 2005]

The definitive rodeo movie -at least for my money -is The Lusty Men ,directed by the great Nicholas Ray ,a movie that appeared a year before Arena and Arena is essentially a scaled down ,somewhat soap opera style version of the Ray picture with a more lightweight and less stellar cast in the key roles . The protagonist is Hob Daniels ( Gig Young ) a rodeo star whose career and resultant nomadic lifestyle have brought about a separation between himself and his wife ( Polly Bergen ) .They meet up in Tuscon where Hob is competing in a rodeo and an attempted reconciliation fails to materialise .Hob is accompanied by his current girl friend ,Sylvia Lorgan ( Barbara Lawrence) a woman who in another era would be described as a rodeo groupie . Also present is an ageing rodeo star fallen up hard times ;this is Lew Hutchins (Harry Morgan ) whose devoted wife ( Jean Hagen ) ,rather like Hobs wife ,would like to see her husband settling down instead of working as a rodeo clown ,thje only work he can get . The movie is in essence the battle between the women and their desire for domesticity and the men who are in love with their free spirited ,hand to mouth world with its camaraderie and celebrity . The script is ,sadly ,too lightweight to explore this tension in any but the most perfunctory of ways and the picture never manages to be anything other than pleasant but unmemorable

Persuasive performances all round and good use of documentary footage shot at the Tuscon rodeo help but this is essentially a moderate B movie

Somewhat disappointing!

[JohnHowardReid · 6/10 · 10 February 2018]

Way back when it was first released, I commented in my newspaper review that the best way to enjoy Arena was to come late. I was wrong. The best 3-D sequence is right at the very beginning of the movie, with two cars nosing into the camera as they race along the highway to Tucson. After this initial spurt of action, all we get is a lot of dreary rodeo footage with a few steers horning into the lens.

The screenplay is likewise dull, though it does provide a few snappy lines for the lovely Barbara Lawrence. Her wonderfully sinuous femme fatale lifts the acting level of Arena considerably, even inspiring Robert Horton to lift his game.

Gig Young as nearly always is insufferably dull, whilst unattractively photographed Jean Hagen is wasted in a thankless role. Miss Bergen looks pretty but out of place.

Interesting to see Lee Van Cleef in a rare sympathetic underdog role.

Despite some bright stretches, color photography in the print under review is inclined to be too soft and diffuse - especially in the seemingly endless rodeo footage which looks like a blow-up from 16mm.

Not bad, well acted, but dull rodeo footage bogs it down

[HEFILM · 5/10 · 9 October 2019]

I'd long wanted to see this and see it in 3D as it occasionally will show up at a 3D fest and because the director made such great use of 3D years later in Amityville Horror 3D. I ended up seeing a good print but flat on TCM.

The trouble here is Fleischer was really good with action but the rodeo footage seems to have been shot from very far away, with a few OK close ups of actors shot against projected footage. It's hard to put an actor on a fake horse and have it look at all real and those shots work well enough, but we are so far from the action so much of the time that in 3D or flat it just ain't exciting.

The story all takes place on one long day at the rodeo that is a little usual and Gig Young does well on horse or not. Henry Morgan probably has the best role, in real life he was a devoted horseman. The color process gives the film a more natural color than it typical of the 1950's but yes, the best action scene is the opening car scene and one scene late in the show I can't mention as it'd be a spoiler.

It's a sort of downbeat rodeo film dealing with the broken lives and loves involved in what is shown to be a job with no reward. Director Fleischer was on his way up at the time so this is a let down as you need exciting and dangerous rodeo footage and for whatever reason you just don't get it here. I sort of suspect they had to shoot at a real rodeo event and the cameras had to be in the stands and then later they shot a few inserts of actors to match the documentary footage. If this was the way it was done it was probably due to budget restrictions--too bad, if Fleischer had been able to do the action scenes the way he was easily capable of the movie might have the kick it needs. He does have a chance to convince you the actors are interacting with the dangerous animals in the sort of pregame aspects of the riding, but then when the real action happens, again we are way far away in the stands.

Barbara Lawrence looks the part and acts well as the femme fatale, all the dramatic scenes work well but....

Still it's better than Junior Bonner, another later Rodeo film, it may well be that you have to be there to really get a rodeo.

Good cast but boring film

[Sean_Biggins · 5/10 · 11 June 2019]

I'm a big fan of Harry Morgan (Col. Potter from MASH) but I didn't realize why this was so boring until I read it was one of the first 3D films so that explains it - the whole thing takes place at a rodeo where they could obviously keep the cameras in one spot and not have to move them. Anyhow it's pretty boring unless you like guys knocking cattle to the ground. Oh yeah, and listening to the same crazy song over and over again and again, it's like a carnival song that plays over and over each time they let a cow out of the pen so you hear it like about 200 times during the film! I just ended up changing the channel

Bring On The Bull Fighters

[bkoganbing · 8/10 · 4 November 2008]

Arena was a short B feature from MGM which was famous because it was shot in 3-D. The rodeo with its exciting events is a perfect venue for the 3-D process. I only wish I had seen Arena in the movie theaters, but at the age of 6, I wouldn't have appreciated it.

Director Richard Fleischer packs a whole lot of plot and a whole lot of rodeo into the 71 minute running time of Arena. The lead here is Gig Young who is arriving at the Tucson rodeo accompanied not by wife Polly Bergen, but with buckle bunny Barbara Lawrence. That by the way is the expression for rodeo groupie.

Bergen shows up later saying she wants a divorce and understandably so, but she and Young will hash it out after the day's events.

A nice group of character actors round out the cast. Lee Van Cleef is a veteran rider battling injuries and for once is a nice guy in a film, something I never thought I would see. Robert Horton is a young cowboy looking to make his mark and maybe even make some time with Lawrence should Young's grip loosen. Harry Morgan is a former rodeo great who is now the clown of the show and he's accompanied by wife, Jean Hagen and son Lee Aaker.

I completely agree with the other reviewer's criticism though about Arena portraying the rodeo clown as the broken down guy they give a job to, for charity. Having seen enough PBR shows I know for a fact that those guys are and have to be in peak condition to be playing tag with those bucking bulls, getting the bull-riders out of harm's way.

In fact it's really something seeing the riders without the flak vests and some with protective helmets that they have today. Those cowboys were really taking their lives in their hands.

Other than that. Arena is a fine film about rodeo life in and out of the Arena.

As for the bullfighters of today, in the PBR they're not dressed in clown suits any more. In fact the function is split and the entertainer in the PBR is Flint Rasmussen and he can if necessary play some tag with the bull. But three men go into that Arena to aid the rider, not just one any more.

And for those three guys, Shorty Gorham, Frank Newsome, and Joe Baumgartner as well as Flint this review is respectfully dedicated.